Big cricket events like ICC Knock Out and World Cup present big opportunity. But opportunities come with riders attached. With a number of brands spending mega bucks on cricket, do viewers recall the commercials. Are associations with various cricket properties like 'replay bug' and 'master blaster' meeting objectives.

This LODESTAR Media study - 'How Cricket Works' finds out.

Let us look at how the advertising on a cricket match works. The construct of cricket buys includes two components: On air as well as off air buying. Even in the on air advertising section, there are spot buys as well as sponsorships. While it is easier to gauge the planning and buying effectiveness of on air spot buys, the response as regards the off air advertising and sponsorships is hard to evaluate for the media planners and buyers.
An advertiser may spend a lot of money for sponsoring a property but it might just happen that the target audience does not notice it or is not able to relate it with the game.

To overcome this limitation, we at Lodestar Media planned a market research to gauge the recall levels of the cricket lovers as regards the various properties and their association with the brands that were advertising during the series. In simple words, how much does a person watching a cricket match remember the advertisements that were seen during the matches and the brands that sponsored the various properties? What does it take to make an association with the game and to capture a place in the mind of the customers?

The Methodology involved getting questionnaires filled by cricket lovers. Two rounds were conducted in Delhi.
Round I (April-May, 2002): Among those who had watched the Zimbabwe tour of India in February-March 2002. Since the market research was conducted in May there was a sufficient time lag between the two events.
Round II (June 2002): This time around the target who had watched the matches played during the India tour of West Indies in May-June 2002, were interviewed to judge the recall levels immediately after the series concluded in stark contrast with round I.
The sample size in each round was 100.
Responses were collected into three broad categories: the TOM response, spontaneous responses and the aided recalls. These were checked for properties that advertisers associate with and the brand recall.

I) Properties ranked on the basis of recall levels.
Here the basis of ranking was taken as unaided recall levels (TOM + Spontaneous recalls). The results as compiled for the two rounds can be summarized as:
Round I

Rank	Property	Recall levels*
		TOM	Spont.	Aided	None
I	Side Panels	29	19	28	4
II	Ground Sponsorship	12	22	44	2
III	Title Sponsorship	7	25	47	1
IV	Side screen	4	26	40	10
V	Master Blaster	5	14	34	27
VI	Super Sixes	4	11	32	33
VII	Action Replay	0	12	54	14
VIII	Cricket Rating	1	9	60	10
IX	Third Umpire	0	6	49	25
X	Crawlers	0	3	38	39
XI	Appeal sponsorship	0	1	31	48
XII	Turnaround	0	1	29	50

Round II

Rank	Property	Recall Levels*
		TOM	Spont.	Aided	None
I	Ground sponsorship	12	22	33	1
II	Side panels	20	11	24	13
III	Title sponsorship	6	10	48	4
IV	Side screen	1	10	23	34
V	Action replay	2	7	44	15
VI	Cricket rating	1	7	46	14
VII	Super 4s	0	8	33	27
VIII	Statistics package	0	7	11	50
IX	Crawlers	0	5	36	27
X	Master Blaster (not present)	1	4	19	44
XI	Spectacular catches	0	4	37	27
XII	Weather report	0	2	20	46
XIII	Appeal sponsorship	1	0	13	54
XIV	Turnaround	0	1	41	26
XV	III umpire	0	0	21	47
XVI	Wicket package	0	0	11	57

As can be inferred from the two tables, a) The viewers' involvement seems to be higher and thus high recall for properties that are built into the game like: side panels, ground sponsorship/panels and title sponsorship.
b) Time period also influences recall scores, e.g.; Crawlers and Turnaround in Round I, the recall is very poor but the same properties in the next round have done better.

II) Properties and the associated brand recall.
More importantly, we also sought to evaluate brand names that people associate with a given property. The Brand Sponsor as mentioned is the actual sponsor and the brands recalled are the ones that were recalled. (* Indicates figures in %)

The results for the two rounds can be summarized as:
Round I

Property	Brand sponsor	Brand Recalled*	Brand recalled*	Brand recalled*
Side panels	LG, Hero Honda	HH 25	LG 26	Pepsi 25
Ground sponsorship	Pepsi	Pepsi 76
Title sponsorship	Pepsi	Pepsi  99
Side screen	Pepsi	Pepsi 60
Master blaster	ICI	ICI 10	HH  10	Pepsi 06
Action replay	Samsung	SG  24	BPL  16
Cricket rating	None	SG  38	Ceat 28
Third umpire	None	Britannia  20
Crawlers	Pepsi, Hyundai, Bajaj	Pepsi 37	Hyun  3
Appeal sponsorship	Himani Navratan	None 97
Turnaround	Bajaj	Bajaj        14

Round II

Property	Brand sponsor	Brand Recalled*	Brand Recalled*	Brand Recalled*
Side panels	Cable & Wireless	C&W               30	Pepsi     28
Ground sponsorship	Cable & Wireless	C&W               65	Pepsi     18
Title Spon. (On air)	Pepsi	Pepsi              54	C&W     25
Side screen	C&W	Pepsi              16	C&W       4
Super Fours	IBP	Pepsi              12	None     81
Action replay	ING Vyas	SG                  21	Pepsi       7	BPL      6
Cricket rating	Samsung	SG                  54	Ceat      15
Third umpire	Timex	Britannia         12	None     88
Crawlers	Maruti	Pepsi              24	Maruti    13
Turnaround	Bajaj	Bajaj               43
Weather report	BlueStar	None               91
Statistics package	Onida	Onida               7	SG          6
Spectacular catches	HP	Hero Honda     9	LG          5	None   75
Wicket package	Yamaha	None               94

What do the Figures say?

• Since it is already known that the top most recalled properties were the same in both the rounds, the fact that the brand association for these properties is quite in favor of the actual names is enough to lay stress on the point that greater the visibility, higher the impact.
• In the case of Cricket rating, the responses are interesting.
  In the First round, the association was high both with Samsung (38%) and Ceat (28%). Ceat was probably recalled due to its association with this particular property in the past. But in the second round, the recall percentage was tilted highly in favor of Samsung (54%) with Ceat (15%) still in the picture. Thereby, fortifying the theory of time lag as an important influencing factor for recall.
• Similar is the case with Action Replay Sponsorship and Third Umpire.
  BPL was associated with Action Replay due to its prior sponsorship of the property. Samsung gained popularity in round II whereas it had sponsored the property in the first series. Third Umpire is instantly related with Britannia 50-50. It was remembered even in Round I where there was no Third Umpire property. The actual sponsors for third Umpire i.e. Timex and for Action replay i.e. ING Vyas in round II were not recalled by even one respondent.
  So investment behind a property cannot be a fling but a long term relationship to bear positive results for future.
• Crawlers mean Pepsi. This is probably due to the attention-grabbing crawlers that Pepsi had run during the round l and the effect has rubbed off on to the round II as well.

The Soft Drinks Category:

• The brand that occupies the top most rung on the brand ladder is Pepsi. It has the highest Top of the Mind recall, the reason being its long time association with the game, its advertisements featuring famous cricketers and its high visibility feature.
• The brand that follows Pepsi is Coke. It has also like Pepsi, created a niche for itself in the mind of the cricket fans. The reason again being the BIG way in which it has made itself visible.

• Another brand that enjoys a high association with Cricket is Hero Honda. Even though it was not a sponsor during the round II matches, it still ranks III in the TOM category. This is a good enough proof of the popularity that the brand enjoys.
• Bajaj is the second major Two Wheeler Category player that has a high-unaided recall.

• Samsung is also recalled highly though it is mostly aided recall. Its 'Freshitarian' wave is very popular.
• Similar is the case with LG where the recall is again high but aided

• In the first table, Pepsi sponsored Title Sponsorship, Ground Sponsorship as well as the Side Screen. As can be seen the unaided correct brand recall is very high re-emphasizing on the fact that Pepsi has a very strong association with the game and people do remember when it sponsors a match.
• Also, another interesting thing to note is that the Round II series was held in West Indies and so the Side Panels featured more of that country's brand. Hence, despite the recall being high for Side Panels (81%), the unaided correct brand association is low (5%).
  Whereas in Series I, the response was much more favorable with brands like Hero Honda and LG making their impact.

• Side Panels, Ground Sponsorship and Title Sponsorship are extremely popular and have been listed in the Rank I category in both the series. Side Screen and Action Replay follow close behind.
• The fact that visibility is a very important feature while evaluation is done by the respondents is again highlighted.
• It was pointed out by the respondents that properties like Crawlers and Action Replay probably come at a time when the concentration levels are high and hence, the noticeability is low.

For our analysis we have tracked most India matches right from Year 2000 to the India Zimbabwe ODIs in 2002. Sponsors were identified and their investment in the sport evaluated.
The Total Duration (in seconds) for the major players across the various tournaments can be listed as:

	Duration (in sec) across years
SPONSORS	2000	2001	2002(till mar)
Coca Cola	29220	43810	4470
Pepsi	17570	25370	11420
LG	14080	9015	4705
BPL	13730	14775	-
Bajaj	10575	12345	5545
Samsung	8655	16250	1345
Hero Honda	2615	5757	3300

And what a discovery! A few interesting findings can be listed down after comparing the above table with the research recalls for brands.

• Although Coca Cola is a bigger spender than Pepsi and acquires a major chunk of the commercials telecast time, Pepsi has a better recall. The reason being the association that Pepsi has had with Cricket in terms of its advertisements featuring Cricket celebrities.
• Samsung, LG and BPL are the major home appliances category spenders and even though BPL is not spending currently, its association with the action replay property is still strong.

While BPL has pushed its TVs during cricket matches, both Samsung and LG have a much-diversified portfolio. The entire range of products is laid emphasis on though in unequal measures.
But cricket is a different ball game. It attracts all kinds of spenders from big to small. A look at the small players who also buy spots and feature during matches.

Advertisers	Duration of commercials across years
	2000	2001
Fevicol	3758	845
Funskool games	400	-
Krack SR Cream	300	-
Nescafe	530	-
Ponds’	730	-
Jo rose and sandal soaps	-	440
UTI Bank	-	1610
Himani fast relief	1450	120

These are products, which even though are not related to cricket but are also a part of the brand race and the objective in their case is to cash upon cricket!
Here the wise thing is actually to buy spots because even if these advertisers try to sponsor a property, the recall is low, as people are not able to connect them with cricket.
This has been very aptly proved in the research where brands like Himani Navratan, Global Trust Bank, ING Vyas etc. And since the property sponsorship is far more costly than a spot buy, it does not actually make sense to spend money on it and get benefits limited to a spot buy.
It is hence necessary either to be highly visible like Coca Cola or to have a strong association with the game just like Pepsi does! If you decide to go for an association take care that while sponsoring either you associate through some relevance to cricket (Britannia 50-50 at the time of third umpire) or do something really different (BPL action replay sponsorship).

If you have a limited amount of money in hand and want to have a portfolio that spans across genres, you can buy spots during a match and just like any other program on any other channel, enjoy an unparalleled reach!

Now after analyzing the answers to where and how to invest your money. Lets look at when to invest it! Here are few tips…

1. As expected cricket fans prefer India versus Pakistan followed by Australia and Srilanka.
   
2. Since there are figures for tests as well as ODIs it would be more convenient to have a bifurcation between the two and have a much clearer picture! ODIs are clear winners, however, test matches could be efficient buys.
   
3. Also another thing that is worth noticing is the time of telecast of the match. One would expect that a prime time match does better than non-prime time. However, a straight average of ratings across various teams that India played over the past two years reveals that cricket lovers just like to see India play - prime time or non-prime time!
   

Cricket as an advertiser's medium, has great potential and when the client's money is at stake there is nothing more important for a planner than to have answers to such questions and hence make the right decision and put the money at the right place, the right time and in the right way.